The subsequent sections will introduce the ‘Eco Village’ project, later named German Haritha Gama, and will analyse how a group of private donators developed and designed their ideas and visions of a “model village”. The material will illustrate donators’ rationale and socialized knowledge, showing how this informed certain claims and activities in the implementation process, and how donators’ thereby produced an identity of community life.
When asked why Galle district was selected for the project, one donator honestly stated: “We knew the East was more in need for housing projects, but with the distance and troublesome travel conditions we thought it is better to choose Galle
… you know we wanted to participate and attend the implementation process and
6 89 households, 25 government officials and 8 key informants have been interviewed (semistructured) several times during fieldwork period in 2009/10 and 11. Further 9 group discussions were held in the village. Also during this period interviews and conversations were held with 9 informants in Germany.
visit the site from time to time… also the political situation in the North and East was still insecure and we could not risk delays or even rupture of the project”
(34,082009, Donator A).
This quote is indicative of the process that led from the original affect of benevolence among donators (as from now: donator A, B and C) to the selection for a site and subsequent implementation of a housing relocation scheme, designed as a “model village”. The whole set-up was shaped by the dense networks of politically influential figures and their relationships in Baden-Württemberg (Ba-Wü), Germany as well as in Sri Lanka; networks that the project initiators had established long before the tsunami happened. These networks of personal contacts up to the highest political levels, both in the governments of Baden-Württemberg and in Sri Lanka gave the project a particular prominence and urgency, which required special attention by the subordinated organizations and bureaucracies in order to make the project become a success, both for the donators in Germany and for their political allies in Sri Lanka. This created a significant dilemma: On the one hand the strong networks of the donators made their efforts publicly visible and showcased the importance of the project, making fundraising very successful. On the other hand, the conditions that different donators attached to the project made its design complicated and created high pressure to produce successful and visible outcomes fast.
Each of the donators worked (or had done so) for governmental institutions or had close linkages to governmental agencies thereby gaining good reputation in their political and private social field. Further they had built up long-term business as well as personal relations with Sri Lanka. Donator C, for example, had worked seven years in Sri Lanka building up the ‘German Vocational Training Centre’ in Moratuwa, today one of the most accredited technical schools in the country. He had remained well connected to Sri Lankan institutions, ministries and senior officials and almost every year voluntarily organized courses in Moratuwa or exchange programs for Sri Lankan students to visit Germany. Donator B had an established business rapport and linked Ba-Wü companies with Sri Lankan companies for business knowledge and technology exchange. For his efforts he was honoured with the position as honorary consul to Sri Lanka. Subsequent to the tsunami he reported, “I was asked by many people if I am going to help in Sri Lanka … people trusted my knowledge and contacts … but also I was asked from Sri Lankan friends, colleagues and politicians if I am willing to donate money”
(22, 102009, Donator B). He therefore wrote “begging/ letters” to companies and work colleagues in order to raise money and was overwhelmed by the response.
The third donator (Donator A), a senior official of the Ministry of Environment in
Ba-Wü (MEBW), considered Tsunami rehabilitation as a promising opportunity to revitalize a former cooperation between his ministry and the Sri Lanka Ministry of Development and Water Supply. In the mid 1990s the two ministries had partnered in a bilateral development cooperation to transfer knowledge and newly invented eco-friendly technologies for waste water systems and energy generation for small rural communities.
Due to their social standing and political linkages, fundraising was very efficient.
This coincided with the then German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, using his traditional New Year speech 2004/2005 to call for solidarity with the disaster affected communities in Asia and Africa. The Chancellor’s appeal was particularly directed towards states, cities and communities to take over partnerships7 in tsunami affected regions, which created new forms of public and official financial support. In early 2005 the state of Ba-Wü organized a meeting for such private initiatives in which Donator A, B and C met and collated ideas. The outcome was the formation of the ‘Baden Württemberg Tsunami Relief Cooperation’
(BWTRC), officially linked to the MEBW with the aim to rebuilt houses. The then state minister supported their idea using his contacts to the Baden Württemberg Foundation (BWF) to set up a Tsunami Fund (1 Mio Euro) for private initiatives to access money for long-term engagement in tsunami affected regions.8 In mid 2005 the BWTRC was granted 750’000 Euros of this fund to construct an ‘Eco-Village’. The project had to fulfil the following criteria9: (1) focus on long-term investment into infrastructure, by (2) building a new village model for eco-friendly living, (3) introduce new technologies originating from Baden-Württemberg, and
7 Abridgement official German New Year Speech 2004/2005:
“Ich habe von der Dimension des Leidens gesprochen, der wir gerecht werden müssen und zwar jeder an seinem Platz. Die Staaten, die Regionen, die Wirtschaft und die ganze Weltgesellschaft. Ich möchte nachhaltige Hilfe für die Region. Ich will, dass wir uns lange verantwortlich fühlen.
Alle wohlhabenden Länder sollten Partnerschaften für den Wiederaufbau bestimmter Regionen übernehmen... Das würde zeigen, dass wir über das Spenden von Geld - das gewiss wichtig ist - weit hinaus wollen. Dass wir Verantwortung als etwas Dauerhaftes begreifen...” (Source: http://www.
lc-bonn-venusberg.de/lcbnvb_d_eingang_20050102_bk_n-anspr.htm)
The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation guided the process of the Partnership Initiative.
The ‚Service Agency Communities in One World’ (SKEW) of the Ministry was assigned with the task to coordinate and match partnerships. Communities, town councils, regions, schools, or companies were able to place a request for a partnership with SKEW and they provided the service to identify local aid projects in which the initiators were able to invest there money. However many private initiatives directly contacted aid agencies in order to directly communicate and negotiate possible aid projects and to have a bigger influence in the delivery process.
8 „…für längerfristige Probleme wie Infrastrukturmaßnahmen oder Präventivprojekte großen Hilfsbedarf geben. Der Aufsichtsrat hat daher einer grundsätzlichen Bereitstellung zunächst bis zu 1 Mio. Euro in den Wirtschaftsplan 2005 zugestimmt…” (Source: http://www.bwstiftung.de/index.php?id=401&tx_
ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=274)
9 Source: Internal Memo MEBW (13052005, MEBW)
(4) transfer knowledge to improve peoples eco-friendly behaviour.
With growing funds and involvement of official authorities the BWTRC decided to partner with a knowledgeable and experienced emergency aid agency. The partner was found in AID with its headquarters in the capital city of the state of Baden Württemberg. Even so, the former director of the agency suggested in an interview that she was reluctant to accept the partnership at one point, however it was not possible to decline, as “…there was so much politics involved, that to withdraw from the project would have caused problems and a bad reputation for our agency” (44, 012009, HH). To counterbalance donators’ influence AID topped up the project budget with 1,2 Million Euros - half of the total budget - to keep a say in its planning and implementation and to legitimize the project under the organizational mandate.
The politically charged importance of the project in Germany was also carried over to Sri Lanka. During a preliminary fact finding mission10 conducted by the founders of BWTRC, the idea of a ‘Green Village’ was introduced to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Development & Water Supply, and to the Minister of Skills Development, Vocational & Technical Education, the former partner of Donator C. Both agreed to support the project and to liaise with the relief cooperation to provide necessary assistance. In a first step the Sri Lankan Ministry of Development & Water Supply signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) creating bilateral project cooperation. Later this cooperation was transferred into an official tsunami project under TAFREN, later RADA11, to allow for applying full tax exemption and accessing other key benefits like access to government land, allocation of basic infrastructure, and support in beneficiary selection. Even though the bilateral agreement first sidelined the official Tsunami rehabilitation approach the political involvement of higher senior officials helped to revoke the MoU and transfer ‘Eco Village’ into an official tsunami project. Further evidence of the political influence of senior officials lies in the fact that ‘Eco Village’ was one of the first international tsunami projects to be granted full tax exemption in early 2007.
10 Source: Internal Memo of Fact Finding Mission (29042005, MEBW)
11 Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation was immediately set up in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster in order to coordinate the reconstruction programmes. Its main activities was to coordinate, facilitate and assist implementing organizations, coordinate donor assistance and fund raising activities, to expedite the procurements process, and to build capacity in government implementing agencies.
In November 2005 RADA was created as a government agency by presidential decree taking over TAFREN’s coordination activities.